Arabs, Jews must attempt a more balanced perspective

The lack of formal dialogue between Jewish and Arab students at
UCLA is a serious concern, and the Daily Bruin deserves credit for
spotlighting the issue (“Does open discussion really exist at
UCLA?,” News, Nov. 3).

I’d like to suggest, however, that while the formation of
a lasting dialogue group sponsored by mainstream umbrella
organizations is a laudable goal, students who want to change the
tone of campus discussion about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
should not wait for the Muslim Student Association and the Hillel
Jewish Students Association to take the lead.

Instead, the minority of Jewish and Arab students who do not
view the conflict through the narrow lenses typical of their
respective communities should form their own organization. That
organization should not limit itself to dialogue, but should also
engage in public advocacy, demonstrating to the UCLA community an
alternative to the often self-righteous displays both Hillel and
the MSA engage in on a regular basis.

Indeed, it is difficult to sustain a meaningful dialogue when
the two groups that are supposed to be talking to each other in
private talk past each other in public. Hillel’s
triumphalist, near-militaristic annual celebration of Israeli
Independence Day and the MSA’s deceptive, near-xenophobic
annual protests against that celebration exemplify this
phenomenon.

How can we expect civil dialogue to take place alongside the
public screaming matches to which everyone on this campus has
become so accustomed?

The problem is that too many Arabs and too many Jews, even those
who agree on the need for a two-state solution, understand the
Middle East conflict in radically different ways.

For many Arabs, Israel represents merely another colonial,
imperialist landgrab by Westerners bent on displacing and
subjugating the native Arab population. MSA President Mariam
Jukaku’s suggestion in The Bruin that Muslims “see (the
conflict) on a global level, as an effect of globalism and
colonialism” is typical of this viewpoint.

Even those Arabs who rightfully reject political violence too
often rationalize terrorism as an understandable response to
Israel’s alleged colonialist aggression.

Similarly, many Jews believe the Jewish nation is historically
and culturally entitled to all of so-called “Greater
Israel,” including the West Bank. Even those Jews who accept
that Israel eventually will have to give up most or all of the West
Bank as part of a peace agreement view this sacrifice as a
practical necessity, not as a moral imperative.

My humble contention is that both of these perspectives are
wrong. Instead, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is best understood
as the collision of the quests of two historically wronged peoples
for self-determination and human dignity.

Because of history and geography, those quests have proven
difficult to reconcile, leading to a half-century of tragedy upon
tragedy.

The only way to end the conflict is to recognize that both
quests represent the expression of equally legitimate national
aspirations and neither quest can be fully complete until the other
is also consummated. Neither people will live in peace until both
peoples live in peace.

Viewed from this perspective, Arabs cannot rationalize terrorism
as merely a response to colonialism and Jews cannot grudgingly
accept the relinquishment of the West Bank as merely a sacrifice
Israel must make in order to secure peace.

Clearly, the current leaderships of both Israel and the
Palestinian Authority do not subscribe to this understanding of the
conflict. That is why it is so important for all of us to promote
this vision.

Here at UCLA, those students who recognize that both Israelis
and Palestinians have equally legitimate national goals should not
merely sit down and talk about it. They should not wait for their
respective communities to negotiate protocols for civilized
discussion.

Instead, they should speak out. They should speak out when the
MSA chants hateful slogans equating Zionism with racism. They
should speak out when Hillel holds uncritical, chest-pounding
pro-Israel celebrations in Bruin Plaza.

They should speak out whenever someone on this campus attempts
to claim the moral high ground for his or her side because the
moral high ground is something to which neither Israelis nor
Palestinians are entitled right now.

A dialogue group is a great idea; I hope it happens, and I hope
it lasts. But what UCLA really needs is a group of students who can
extricate themselves from the conventional wisdom of their
respective communities and advocate with passion and force the
balanced view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that is so
noticeably missing on this campus.

Weiner is a second-year law student and a former Daily Bruin
Viewpoint editor.